Exactly one year ago today on May 9, 2015, I graduated college... Honestly, that makes me want to vomit. That means that I can no longer say "oh I graduated in May" or have the excuse of being fresh out of college. I think I am now what you'd call an adult?
In this past year, I saw friends move away, donated my hair, moved back home with my parents, spent six months in a depressing state of unemployment, moved out of my childhood home, lost some weight and gained it right back, landed a full-time job with benefits and all, lived on my friends' floor (no, not their couch - legitimately their floor), started paying my own bills, moved in with a friend from college, had some fun, shed some tears, and somehow became an "adult".
Anyways, after a year in this so-called real world - one of the hardest years of my life - I've learned a few things. However, I'll spare you the list and leave you with the hardest but most valuable lesson I learned: there is no "right" way to adult.
Anyone who knows me will probably nod to themselves in agreement when I say that I like to do things "right" - as in I don't particularly like doing things wrong or doing the wrong thing. I have always been a rule-follower, over-achiever, do-gooder, etc. I always thought that that was how you were supposed to do life.
Growing up, it was pretty easy to do the "right" thing because there were always rules in place, things you are supposed to do, etc. However, I quickly learned that the real world doesn't quite work like that...
I have always been a huge people-watcher but during this past year of post-grad life, I did exponentially more of it in the form of observing, question-asking, and mental note-taking on how people live in this so called real world. All of this was done in the hopes that I would figure out what the "right" way to do things was. I wanted to know how you are supposed to get a job, what job you are supposed to get, how you are supposed to budget, where you are supposed to live, how you are supposed to interact with others - I was basically like a newborn baby learning how to live all over again.
I would ask my parents for advice, observe what my peers were doing, talk to people who had graduated before me, ask co-workers about their lives - hell, I even went to Google with a few questions - all in hopes to be pointed into some general direction of how I was supposed to live.
Nevertheless, all these observations and questions did was leave me even more confused than I was before. Without fail, every single source always had a different answer. There was not a single time that I asked a question and got the same response from multiple sources.
Some people live at home while others share a room in a tiny apartment with friends. Some people pay their own bills while others live off of their parents' money. Some people go out to eat for every meal of the day while others pack a lunch and cook for themselves at home. Some people wake up to exercise at 5 am everyday while others don't even own a pair of tennis shoes. Some people go to grad school while others travel. Some people love their job while others feel like they still haven't found their purpose.
For a long time, this really frustrated me and quite honestly made me very depressed. I was lost because I didn't know the "right" way to adult (which by the way has become a verb in my post-grad life - ask any other post-grad and I think they will say the same thing). I wanted a rule book and set of directions for how to live life. I was desperate to do life right and succeed in the real world.
However, after finally moving out of my parents house, getting a full-time job, and paying bills on my own (yes that is a milestone worth noting), I started to realize that I was living/adult-ing without that rule book or set of directions. As terrifying as that realization was for me, it was also kind of liberating.
After recognizing that life goes on regardless of whether you are doing life "right" or not, I started to breathe a little easier. I realized that there has never been and will never be a "right" way to adult or live. Everyone is just doing what they think is "right" - doing what they can to get by and enjoy whatever they can in this crazy thing called life.
Johanna de Silento truly said it best when she said that "the only way to fail at life is to abstain."
For better or worse, everyone is just kind of winging it and it's up to us to either let it terrify us or thrill us. Personally, I'm working on finding the thrill in it and I suggest that you do too.
Sincerely Yours,
Just Another Original
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